Lisa Roecker

You know what I miss? I miss those fun little high school mystery books that I used to read when I was a teen. The ones where you're just as clueless as the MC, so you're having to figure out and guess right along with the main character. You know what I'm talking about, right? Well, fortunately for us, Lisa and Laura Roecker have brought that back with their debut novel, The Liar Society.

Set in a boarding school, this book has all of the potential to be a run-of-the-mill boarding school show more book where the main girl is popular with all the hot guys, but the mean girls don't like her and all she wants is a true friend... yadda yadda yadda. Yet again, the authors surprise us by taking the boarding school premise and making it so much more than that. We have a main character who's distraught by her best friend's death and, when receiving e-mails from said dead best friend, she does everything in her power to try and find out what the friend is trying to telling her. What ensues is a story full of adventure and mystery, with a hint of romance and wit added right along with it.

Kate is a wonderfully written MC and I love that they make her such a powerful female in this book - she's got the looks, the attitude and the wit. Plus, there's this sense of undying loyalty for her best friend in the book that just makes me all warm and fuzzy on the inside. I think Kate and her two sidekicks, Liam and Seth, are an amazing trio that work well together. Seth is that guy next door that you can always depend on and Liam is that bad boy that makes your little heart go pitter-patter. Their dynamic together is nothing short of amazingly perfect. I also liked that some of the characters weren't as shallow as they seemed as first and were developed extremely well through the story where it wasn't necessarily told that they weren't as horrible as you thought, you actually saw through their actions how they truly were. Of course, there were some jerks.. but it might surprise you who those jerks really are. Or not.

This is definitely more of a character-driven book, but the plot was not lacking in any way. I loved the use of the flashbacks to show Kate's relationship with her best friend Grace before she died. I also loved the boarding school with all of its rich history and detail. Kate's quest to find out about her friend is endearing and the ending is unexpectedly bittersweet. However, there is closure and a definite hint at another book to follow - one that I will definitely be picking up as soon as it becomes available. show less

I refused to put this book down. I started reading it Saturday before I came to work, read it during work, and finished around 2AM Sunday morning. I fell in love with Kate and Liam, and reveled in a mystery I didn't figure out by page 20. The Sisters Roecker have a fabulous flair for teenage voice and know how to spin a story. I'm stoked for the next book in the series!

Ooh, I do love a good mystery, and THE LIAR SOCIETY totally hit to spot! When her best friend in the whole world dies in a terrible accident, Kate has a hard time picking up the pieces, especially since her other friend abandoned her that night, too. One year later, Kate's still working through her pain but slowly moving on. Until she gets a mysterious email from her dead best friend.

Kate's a great character - brave and gung-ho, stubborn and (dare I say it?) plucky. Yep, I said it. She's show more plucky, just the kind of girl I like to root for. She's been through hell and is working her way back to normal, despite her parents eyeing her strangely (worried she's going to "relapse" into her post-Grace depression) and the kids at school giving her a hard time. Sure, she rebels a bit (if you can call dyeing your hair pink rebelling) but can you blame her? Kate rocks, and I love how she goes after the mystery "Grace" presents her.

And then there's the mystery. From the get-go, I had a ton of questions - the mark of a great mystery to me. As Kate works through the clues Grace sends her, she dives deeper and deeper into the secrets surrounding Grace's death and their school. Ooh, and there are so many secrets hidden throughout this old institution. Secret societies, passageways, cover-ups, and symbols. Kate may have been forced into detective-mode but she's darned good at uncovering the truths (yes, there's more than one mystery here), even those that are buried deep.

Multi-layered and intricately woven, this story will leave mystery lovers completely satisfied. Read it. You'll love it. As for me, I'm hoping to see a lot more of Kate in the future. Really, I have no idea if Kate will reappear in another book but I sure hope she does. One of the things I've been missing in YA is a straight-up mystery. Not that I don't love paranormal and fantasy and all that, but mystery's one of my favorite genres. Yay for THE LIAR SOCIETY! show less

My reasons for requesting this book were two-fold. One, Soho Teen has amazing titles and two, the premise sounded so deliciously creepy. A country club that covers up lies? Definitely sounds like the perfect place for a thrilling mystery! Luckily, This is W.A.R. dove right into the mystery of Willa's death. I found myself anxious to figure out why Willa died, and who the culprit was. I was hooked, and you couldn't have stopped me from finishing if you'd tried.

The characters were really what show more made this story so much fun for me. Each had their own unique personality that really contributed to this vigilante battle. We have Lina, who is bold and brutally honest, Sloane who is lost, Madge who is bossy, and Rose who is just trying to fit in. It's no surprise that I loved Rose the most. I always cheer on the underdog , and I loved watching her grow from an outcast into someone who was able to take charge. Best of all, every character has a secret that they are hiding and I found myself eagerly waiting to find out what they were.

That being said, there was a lot I loved about the mystery in this story. The clues are well laid out. Willa's mystery unravels at a nice, even pace and expertly ties into each character's life. No one is ever what they seem at Hawthorne Lake, and it creates delicious tension. Still, I have to admit that I just didn't feel the excitement that I usually feel with mysteries like these. I wanted to see more sleuthing and more plotting for revenge. The girls have plenty of resources on their side, but I honestly felt like they didn't always use them as well as they could have.

Still, I can't deny that This is W.A.R. was a book that kept me reading until the very end. Despite slight issues I may have had with it, the story itself drew me in and the vivid characters sealed my reading fate. I had no choice but to read ravenously, and I had more than a few moments of intense emotion as the story unfolded. This was a story that I ended up loving, and I have a feeling that you will too. show less